Legal & General Hires Rolls Royce’s Rosie Toogood as CEO of its Modular Housing Business

L&G is seeking to address the UK’s housing crisis by modernising the construction industry, producing precision engineered manufactured units through its new 550,000 sq ft factory in the North of England. The Leeds site can produce up to 3,500 homes per year.  The business is due to employ several hundred local people, creating a new, exciting and innovative industry for the region.

Joining in mid-June, Rosie arrives from Rolls-Royce where she held senior roles across a number of key customer facing business areas, leading new product introduction and setting up global supply chains to deliver complex engineering products.  She is currently Business Development Director for Rolls Royce’s Civil Aerospace business and was previously Executive Vice President of the Compressors organisation, leading over 2,500 employees across operations located in US, UK, Germany & Singapore.  

Prior to joining Rolls-Royce, Rosie trained with Ernst & Young as a chartered accountant and holds an MBA in Strategy & Procurement.  She also served for eight years as a non-executive board member of Derwent Housing Association.

Nigel Wilson, CEO of Legal & General, commented:“Rosie is joining the business at an exceptionally exciting time.  Almost every other industry has seen radical innovation brought about by digital technology advancements.  And yet we continue to build houses the same way that the Victorians did.  We need more entrants to the sector, new technologies and business models to deliver the 100,000 shortfall of new homes. Just as the car industry was automated, so the UK’s traditional house building sector now needs to step up.  We need to build houses faster and more efficiently than ever before.  Rosie has a mandate to deliver this.”

Paul Stanworth, CEO of Legal & General Capital, said: “Rosie joins from a world leading, quality engineering organisation, where she managed complex commercial relationships and delivered large scale, customer-focused product.  She is a strong hire and will provide important leadership for our modular housing business as it reaches the crucial delivery stage.

“Modular building is quicker and more efficient, and delivers at least the same or higher standards of building as traditional methods but with greater certainty. Crucially it is also far less labour intensive, providing additional capacity to the established UK housing sector at a critical time. It offers an economically viable solution and will deliver much needed scale.”

Legal & General Capital (LGC) invests in key strategic UK sectors where financing gaps and returns are attractive for long term investors. LGC is involved in supply side activities across the housing spectrum including: through its stake in CALA Homes; delivering a 1,000 home scheme in Crowthorne through its own house building arm, Legal & General Homes; and investing in a new institutional Build to Rent product. Legal & General more broadly is a significant investor in housing including social housing and student accommodation; and it is bringing housing back to the centre of the UK’s cities through large scale mixed-use urban regeneration schemes.

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